A slick, easy-to-use program that'll get you dancing

Pros: Slick presentation; easy to use; lots of samples; includes mixing and editing tools; very well priced

Cons: Limited to one kind of music

Bottomline: The price makes it a great choice for dance music lovers and wannabe DJs of any level of experience

Price: £20

Manufacturer: Interactive Ideas Ltd

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There was a time when eJay’s easy-to-use software was viewed with scorn by experienced PC music makers.

Nowadays, a number of companies have adopted a similar approach, meaning anyone can use their PC to compose, edit and produce music.

Now up to version 7, eJay’s Virtual Music Studio software is as powerful and easy to use as ever. It is slick and intuitive, and editing the 5,000 supplied samples is easy and effective.

However, this product is limited to the dance music genre. So if you’re a fan of Handel or Hendrix, you will not find the samples to your taste.

Using the software is a simple matter of selecting a sample you want to use and dragging it into the arrangement window.

You can alter certain properties of your composition, such as its speed, panning and volume, and you can also edit the sample in a wonderfully simple way.

Each sample is made up of different parts, and VMS7 enables you to turn each sound on or off at different stages of the sample’s duration.

For example, you might create a drum sample which contains two kick-drum sounds on the first and third beat of the bar. You can add to these by clicking the button representing the kick drum at other points in the sample.

If there’s any criticism of VMS7, it’s that it’s limited to dance music. Other versions are available, along with a compilation of these and more that costs £30, but still it's limited to electronic beat music.

Contrast that with Sony’s ACID Music Studio, which provided a large range of samples across a variety of genres.

VMS7 is a very capable, powerful and easy-to-use program. You can quickly create original compositions and then edit and mix them, before burning them to CD.